Holding the mirror up: How advertising can challenge, not just sell

Our role as creatives shifts everyday, evolving beyond the simple act of production. We can strive to entertain but there exists a deeper, more urgent responsibility to ensure that what we put into the world is rooted in ethical mindfulness. Roanna Williams and Fran Luckin have understood that model’s importance for years and built their brands on it.

As two of South Africa’s influential voices in the creative space, they are redefining the ethical responsibility of advertising in today’s media landscape. In a world where advertising is more widely consumed and accessible than traditional film, its influence extends far beyond commerce, shaping culture, behaviour and public discourse at scale. With decades of experience across both global networks and independent models, they understand the power the medium holds and the responsibility that comes with it.

“There’s something deeply rewarding about taking a human truth or a business challenge and turning it into a solution that actually moves people.” Roanna Williams begins, as we discuss what drew her to the work, explaining that she doesn’t just want to create something that’s clever, she wants to be behind something that makes people feel. “Because when something hits you emotionally, it stays with you and that’s what drives action. That’s where the real impact lies.” By balancing the hook of entertainment with the weight of social visibility, we get the opportunity to create art that serves as both a mirror and a window, inviting the audience to see the world and their place within it, with newfound clarity.

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For Williams and Luckin, the most powerful work stops behaving like traditional advertising and starts functioning as a cultural intervention. Their social impact work is defined by a refusal to soften issues or hide behind metaphors for the sake of comfort. Instead, they focus on crafting honest, unflinching narratives that hold tension and invite the public to engage with difficult realities.

They have been involved in a number of campaigns that have held the attention of the collective public, stirred conversations and inspired change; named Williams’ high impact intervention at the Durban July. Rein in the Pain, in collaboration with the NSPCA, was designed to interrupt a major cultural moment with a real and ignored issue. “With projects like these, the intention is to meet people where they are, in spaces they already occupy, like cultural moments, public events or exhibitions and interrupt that space with something real. It’s about taking issues that are often normalised and making them impossible to overlook but doing so in a way that encourages reflection rather than defensiveness.”

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